


Working it out

by ice_hot_13, piraterhino



Series: Risk & Reward [1]
Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: Connie definitely, F/M, Javier Pena is broken, M/M, Multi, Steve Murphy is not much better, but they are a family, holds the braincells in this family, idiots to lovers, the pegging 3some no one asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:27:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29269500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ice_hot_13/pseuds/ice_hot_13, https://archiveofourown.org/users/piraterhino/pseuds/piraterhino
Summary: Steve and Connie don't have secrets, and when she figures out that Javier Peña might be something Steve wants, too... She starts doing the math to make it happen.
Relationships: Connie Murphy/Javier Peña, Connie Murphy/Steve Murphy (Narcos), Connie Murphy/Steve Murphy/Javier Peña, Steve Murphy/Javier Peña, eventual OT3 - Relationship
Series: Risk & Reward [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2149530
Comments: 27
Kudos: 65





	1. Knowing the Variables

**Author's Note:**

> Collaboration between me and Ice_Hot_13 because Javi's fear of intimacy is delicious, and Steve's neediness offsets it wonderfully and makes it so easy to hurt them? Also, obviously, Connie carries the braincell in this trio, I don't make the rules. 
> 
> Warnings include but aren't limited to: POV switches, timeline jumps, canon what canon?, some-scenes-too-short-some-scenes-too-long, editing and coherency are for people who are better than me. This was originally titled "Pegging 3some No One Asked For" so.

Steve is uptight about himself, absolutely. Has somehow been called both hotheaded _and_ rigid. But with Connie? _For_ Connie? He'll give her anything. He doesn't believe in self consciousness or shame when it makes her so happy and makes them feel close. And this, well…

He thinks he's just gonna indulge her, right? _Sure, honey, if you wanna, I wanna, absolutely_ , because he ain’t ever told Connie _no_ in bed. He wants _everything_ with her, and maybe some men ain’t like that, but he ain’t scared. But this is… different. More different than he was thinking, kneeling between his spread legs on the bed, she's working him open and it's... more vulnerable than he thought?

Steve lives to indulge Connie, and she's so sure about this he doesn't call it off, but it feels like maybe it's more for _him_ than for her because it's all happening to him, which is her absolute intention but Steve wants everything for _her_ so she tells him, the entire time, how good he is for her. How good it feels to be inside him, how good he's being just for her. How it makes her so excited.

The first step to get Steve to do anything is to ask him to do it for her, after all. Everything she asks ends with "for me." _Can you take more for me and let me know how it feels, be louder for me_ and Steve is nervous, but it’s easy to forget that, when he can be so eager for her instead.

And it's all... overwhelming.

For him.

The stretch, the slide, her eyes soft and proud on him, and then she's closing her hand over him while she's rocking gently into his body and it’s dark and quiet, _Nobody would know it looking at you, would they? How well you're taking me, how good you are for me, is it good baby? I want it to be good for you._

The second step of every Connie plan is reminding him how much she loves him, how good he is for her, _to her_ , how she thinks he deserves to feel this good. He basks in her praise and attention, he always has, and it lets him give over to it, the last nervous edges smoothing out under her soft hands, and his sounds getting needier, more insistent. And it is, it is good and shaky and her hand is a little sticky with lube but she holds Steve's larger one anyway, dragging it up her body to kiss at his knuckles like he does to her when they're making love, and she's pulling more than pleasure out of him when she whispers against his skin, "Wish they'd believe me, how gorgeous you are like this."

Her laugh is more air against his skin than sound, but it shatters him like glass when she presses deep, and asks, "What do you think Javi would say, seeing us like this? Seeing you?"

Was he thinking about Javi before? He can't tell, but he's all Steve can think about now - Javi seeing him like this, his voice and his hands and he would be agreeing with Connie - would be saying _yeah, yeah, he is good_ and _look at him_. Would be touching him, maybe. Maybe putting his hands on Connie, behind her (inside her?), chin over her shoulder, both of them looking at him, the way they see inside him, see exactly what he's capable of and ask for more and meet him, and he can't stop the whining sob, coming thick and hot over her small hand, legs tight and squeezing at her hips, begging for– what he doesn't know, but it's pouring out of him.

"Baby, fuck, please, I– _please_ , Con, honey I can't–"

But he can, because she keeps going; gentle, steady, and croons to him that she'll give him anything he wants, _anything_ , including Javi. His whines turn pleading and he's nodding, delirious with it, body shaking, trembling, because Connie is here and it's all _so good_ and if Javi was too -

"He would love this, wouldn't he," Connie tells him more than asks. Steve is shy about it, head turning, face burning, but she tells him, "He would. He would," while she rides deeper into him. Because Steve and Connie have that marriage where they tell each other everything. Where she told him about the wine drunk kisses with her roommate in nursing school. And he'd confessed a crush, a wondering about a neighbor he used to go duck hunting with.

And maybe when she sucked him off sometimes she'd rub her fingers gently behind his balls and she'd murmur, later, while he kissed the taste of himself off her tongue, that it made her so hot to think about what he'd look like, kissing another man.

But now, now he's shaking, and everything is so good it _hurts_ and his eyes are watering, just watering, he ain't crying, but his breath is trembling like the rest of him, and she's holding his face when he tries to look away but he can't push against her gentle hands, still solid inside him but not moving.

"Baby, I've got you," she murmured, "just like I know he'd have you, but it's okay, baby, I've got you right now, shhh..."

Maybe she'd thought how he'd look especially kissing Javi, the way Steve was with Javi was unlike anyone else, and she felt like she was waiting for Steve to see it, too. How he watched Javi, every look a plea for Javi to touch him, keep him - and the part Steve didn't know, how Javi was always poised to reach for him. Wanting him.

Javi could be gentle with Steve when he's like this - Steve trembling, needing, his breathing fragile, his body shaking.

Javi could love him like this.


	2. The Variable.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Javi would love him like this. 
> 
> Javi would be terrified of him like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, perspective changes and overuse of commas is sexy, etc etc.

Javi would love him like this.

Javi would be _terrified_ of him like this.

But Connie knows, _knows_ the way she showed up on his doorstep for help and he didn't flinch, _knows_ the way he's brought Steve home after a bad day neither of them will talk about, knows. Knows Javi would stay anyway.

Javi would be tentative but Javi would be entranced. He would look at her to know what to do, with Steve, Steve who is hers, and she would tell him- he's yours too, now.

~

But Javi. He thinks he knows what he's good for.

He likes to touch beautiful things, but they don't belong to him, he just...

Pays to be close, to be consumed by their momentary fire. But he can't... care for them. Not like they need. And he's. He knows his job. His life. The danger. The compromises he's made, the beds he's lain in to make it happen. But Steve.

Steve saying "all in", Steve and his rage about Connie's cat. Steve and his blue eyes demanding more, and better, and results, and _justice_ like it's something he really thinks Javi can help him deliver.

Steve who looks at Javi like he's one of the things Steve will demand - maybe he's imagining it... but isn't Steve a little possessive of him, too? Doesn't he sometimes think Steve is looking at Connie over Javi’s shoulder, but when Javi turns, it's just him there and Steve is only seeing _him_? Javi has never gotten to keep anything, least of all something as important as Steve.

And _God_ he is possessive. Steve decides something is his, and there's no more negotiating. Steve who shakes his head, mouth tight when Carrillo demands an audience with Javi, doggedly following him in, Steve, who will let Javi obsess over a file but put a plate with a disgusting bologna sandwich on top. Steve, who will look at how Javi is _so tired_ some mornings, and slide over his too sweet coffee and ask, warm lips curling up, just at the corners, just for _him_ and ask, "Why can't you leave them señoritas alone and just go to sleep like a normal person?"

And maybe Javi turns the mug, presses his mouth where he can see a drop of coffee lingering on the rim and imagines the heat there isn't from the liquid inside.

"Don't expect you to understand, Mister Domesticated," is the best he can do, overwhelmed and under-caffeinated.

"Yeah, well, maybe _my_ domestic life could convince you to forget all about them," Steve says. And is Javi caught on the "my", or on the almost-invitation of it? Maybe the possessive look in Steve's eyes, how it makes the “forget all about them" sound like an order? He’s not sure but it almost makes him feel like something that belongs to Steve has a home with him.

~

And maybe he does. When Javi starts getting hollow eyed, Steve starts dragging him home.

Not just to the shared apartment block, but to his door, inside his home. "Baby! Javi's staying for dinner," he announces, only letting go of the sleeve of his jacket once they're inside, exchanging it for a pat and squeeze of his shoulder. Dropping a kiss on Connie's lips and pulling the baby out of her arms for a little swing around, then settling her with Javi.

"I'm making drinks, what's everybody want?" Like this is normal, like Javi belongs, like Connie really is giving him a warm look and a soft wink as she heads back into the small kitchen. That she really is calling over her shoulder, “Keep them both busy, huh? They pout without attention.”

And Javi expects it to stop, expects it to fade when things get... whatever passes for better in Bogatá, but it doesn't. It's still Steve dropping an extra sandwich on his paperwork (bologna and mustard because he's the worst kind of Midwesterner) until Javi refuses to let either of them eat it anymore and drags him to the nearest spot for arepas.

He keeps waiting for things to get - what? Good enough? Bad enough? for this to stop. It just keeps rolling on, gentle and unassuming like the tide. He goes to their apartment, he has dinner with them, he holds the baby and blushes at the way Connie beams at him, and Javi leans in when Steve hugs him goodbye, lets them walk him to his door more than once as an excuse to ‘walk the baby before bed’. It's becoming part of his very foundation and it would be stabilizing if it wasn't so _terrifying_ , so much resting on what isn't his.

~

Some nights the brick and mortar of Steve, of Connie, of the stern grip of Olivia's hand, the way he'd looked at the flowers as he'd passed and thought they'd look nice on the table, the blue curtains behind them...

It's too much.

He disappears from work, "returning a file", then wandering for a smoke, and he just. Doesn't make it back. Finds himself at a bar so thick with sweat-sheened golden brown skin, music louder than the Spanish flying around him, that Steve and Connie wouldn't know where the hell it was.

He buries himself there, some nights, dancing, sweating, ignoring the handoffs of petty drug dealers, and accepting every other offer that comes his way, maybe even once, a brassy bottle blond man, hand down his dark jeans in a corner stall, biting his throat and coming over his too-short fingers despairing and thinking, e _he doesn't smell right_.

Everything about it _is_ despairingly wrong, only because there _is_ a right answer, it's them, it's just _them_ , and Javi is drowning in the wrongness it casts over everything else. He belongs to _this_ \- to fleeting, to anonymous, to loud and momentary and not his to keep.

He can't belong to them when they already have each other, belong to each other.


	3. Scratch Paper/Show Your Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And when he returns, after his third night of escape, after washing his shaking hands in a filthy bathroom sink, after sitting in his truck and seeing the empty, black windows of home the Murphy's apartment, he exhales.
> 
> He's been avoiding Steve's eyes, his blue gaze sad, seeking, and the mouth below them tightening, pulling into an unhappy line that Javi put there. Javi always puts that there when he puts his hands on things he shouldn't.

And when he returns, after his third night of escape, after washing his shaking hands in a filthy bathroom sink, after sitting in his truck and seeing the empty, black windows of ~~home~~ the Murphy's apartment, he exhales.

He's been avoiding Steve's eyes, his blue gaze sad, seeking, and the mouth below them tightening, pulling into an unhappy line that Javi put there. Javi always puts that there when he puts his hands on things he shouldn't.

And when he turns the key in his lock, he pauses because he can hear something, some hushing, and his hand touches the gun at the small of his back before he hears it, a slow drawl, a soothing rumble.

"Shhh, baby, it's just Javi..." Steve is cradling Olivia against his chest, and she's impossibly small in her night clothes, the soft yellow one, with the little pink flowers he'd pointed out to Connie with feigned disinterest only weeks ago.

"What the fu-- what are you doing here, Murphy? Why is--" It's hissed and low and angry, but Steve just tuts at him, one hand letting go of where he was cradling Olivia's head to gesture to a key ring hanging out of his pocket.

"You gave me a key," he shrugged, like it had been for _dropping by_ and not in the likely scenario of his _untimely death_. "And me and Connie were worried, you ain’t been home in a few days, so we thought we'd wait here to check on you."

It's so casual. Too casual, his honest blue eyes always give him away and he studies Olivia's sleepy, fussy form with more focus than it needs. "Connie fell asleep, so I put her in your bed. I know sometimes you don't get in till sunrise."

They were... here, and suddenly _home_ was here, too, hitting Javi full force, the shape of what he was missing suddenly clear. _They're_ here; his apartment has shaken off its emptiness, folded him in like he belongs here, too. It didn't feel like this last night, when it was empty, when he couldn't hear Steve's gentle shushing to Olivia and her sleepy whines, when he couldn't peek into the bedroom and see Connie's shape beneath the covers. This is _here_ , this is _his_ , and he turns nervous eyes to Steve, almost needs to ask if he can stay in his own apartment, because it's never felt like home before and _surely_ that can't belong to _him_.

"Javi." It's soft, and exhausted, and _aching_ in a way that he's never heard before. Never. Steve's voice is rarely small, rarely begging, but it is now, and he's walking toward him, while Javi smells like smoke and someone else's sweat and need. He doesn’t stop till Javi has to lift his arms to keep his balance, holding at Steve's shoulders, Olivia's soft weight and the back of Steve's hands pressing to his chest.

He won't look at Javi, but his eyes are... wet. Filled, while his throat works around the words he's trying to find, eyes locked just below and left and it grinds out, rougher, seeking, like _Javi_ is a place to rest, a place to stay, and he wants to let him in, with his rotting foundation and torn down walls, but... he shouldn't.

"She doesn't sleep, without you singin' to her. She can't. She misses you."

Javi has nothing to give, nothing to bring, but Steve coaxes him out anyway, pulling things from him. He looks at Javi like he _sees_ things Javi can't, not for lack of trying but maybe because his own desperation to see something has blurred his vision.

"I -I can do that," he says, because whatever Steve asks for, it's his, he found it, it's _his_.

Steve's sigh is shaky, and he swallows again, nodding, slouching his horrible, long frame till he rests his head on Javi's shoulder. His softly sloped nose nudges at his collar till Javi can feel the ghost of his mustache touching the skin of his throat, his warm, wet breath a promise to build and a threat to tear, and Steve relaxes more when Javi's arms wrap further around him, pulling him and Olivia closer.

Javi hushes them both, dropping a kiss to Olivia's dark, messy hair and inhaling the powder-innocent scent of her, ignoring, or savoring, or _surviving_ Steve clamoring for all his other senses.

" _Mi alma, mi alma_ ," he croons to her, one hand slowly, stutteringly circling over Steve's back, like he can soothe them both, whispering assurances to her, before humming for them.

Steve leans into him, like _Javi_ is the steady thing here and not him, not his blue, blue eyes and now-tousled hair and the way he sighs out Javi's name like he's being singled out, chosen, _kept_.

 _What now_ , thuds through Javi's veins like his pulse, because everything ends, and Olivia is sleeping, and he cannot live here, in _this_ , in five minutes where everything is soft and quiet and _his_.

Steve's breaths are too even for him to be asleep, but one hand has slipped from Olivia's back between them, to Javi's hip, glancing but heavy, contact lingering as his palm rubs the material of his shirt, cupping his shoulder blade while long fingers reach and anchor gently above his collarbone.

"Honey, can't you just come to bed?" The soft rasp of his mustache and the drag of his damp bottom lip levels Javi's defenses and rebuttals, walls, and what-ifs.

"Just... let us..." His fingers tighten and suddenly Javi wants bruises, tattoos, _ink_ of this moment on his skin forever. Steve must not find the words he's looking for, settling for a pleading, "Javi, please, just... please."

Javi has no words for this, either, nothing he knows how to say; he can only nod, only follow Steve to the bedroom. He has no map, waits in the doorway when Steve puts Olivia down in the portable crib... once Steve isn't leading Javi loses sight of the way.

"Come on," Steve whispers, and there it is again, the path leading to the bed. Everything clear to him only through Steve - his place in the bed, apparent only when Steve leads him there with gentle hands.

Steve strips down to his boxers and the t-shirt Olivia drooled on, eyes puffy slits, standing, swaying, realizing Javi just won't--

He huffs and starts pulling at Javi's button down, bullying it off his body, till he gets with the program, and starts on the button of his own jeans, sliding them down, off, and Steve is suddenly awake, blinking, licking his lips and taking a long, slow breath.

"We're gonna talk about those tomorrow," he growls, like he didn't just drawl out 'honey' over three syllables to wreck Javi's world, pointing at the black briefs Javi suddenly feels don't cover enough at all.

But until tomorrow, he corners Javi against the mattress, makes him get in the middle, and Connie rolls toward him, patting absently, frown between her closed eyes as her hand slides over a much smoother belly than she's used to.

"Steve?"

"No, baby, it's Javi," Steve tells her, keeping his eyes on the man being spooned by his wife, watching the frown melt off her face as a sleepy noise of understanding broke her lips.

"Glad you're home, Javi," she breathes, half asleep again, and Steve nods like he’s satisfied, though Javi feels panicked.

So he gets in bed, too, trapping all that golden skin and sinful underwear between them, and decides they can be awkward tomorrow. He shoves his face in Javi's neck like he had earlier, lain half on top of him, and his arm across the other man's belly grazed Connie's hip contentedly.

"Me, too, honey. M'glad, too."

At first, Javi can't sleep. His heart races, he's afraid if he moves, they'll pull away and he'll be left alone, unmoored, no longer belonging. Maybe Steve knows, because he nuzzles into Javi's neck, keeps stroking his thumb along Javi's hip to remind him - he knows it's Javi, this is where Javi goes, and gradually, Javi's breathing slows back to normal. His hand slides tentatively onto Steve's forearm. He breathes in the scent of Connie's hair.

Steve waits; as tired as he is, he waits for Javi to fall asleep first, afraid Javi will be the last left awake and panic, slip away from them again. He waits, and eventually Javi falls asleep, clinging to them, good and golden and glowing between them.


End file.
